Sam Hurwitt is a freelance theater critic for KQED Arts, the Marin Independent Journal and the San Jose Mercury News in addition to his own theater and culture blog, The Idiolect. You can find him on Twitter cleverly camouflaged as shurwitt.
By Sam Hurwitt
Golden Thread's ReOrient Weaves Together Middle Eastern Stories
Shotgun's 'Eurydice' Finds Love in the Land of the Dead
Fall is for Theater: Five Glorious Bay Area Plays
Tearing Down the System with Anna Deavere Smith
A Rarely Glimpsed Spanish 'Dream' at Cal Shakes
Two People, Three Relationships in Bittersweet Theatrical Collaboration
Supreme Court Justice Tells All in Thurgood Marshall Solo Show
'Detroit' is a State of Mind in Aurora Theatre's Disturbing Suburban Play
Combating Depression with a Year of Free Theater
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"title": "Golden Thread's ReOrient Weaves Together Middle Eastern Stories",
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"content": "\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/reorient-2015/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘ReOrient Festival 2015’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Golden Thread’s annual celebration of Middle Eastern theater.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Sep. 10 – Oct. 4\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">Z Below\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/reorient-2015/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s Golden Thread Productions is entirely devoted to plays from and about the peoples and cultures of the Middle East. The company’s remit encompasses many very different nations, cultures and individual voices, and Golden Thread’s ReOrient festival of short plays gives a strong sense of that diversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The eight short plays in this year’s festival are split into two rotating evenings, and the event also includes a double bill of family-friendly pieces by Fairytale Players based on Iranian and Armenian folk tales; a recital by Syrian-American soprano Saousan Jarjour performing Middle Eastern folk songs reinterpreted through a jazz lens; and the ReOrient 2015 Forum of panel discussions about Middle Eastern theater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED spoke with Evren Odcikin, Golden Thread’s director of marketing and new plays, about the festival’s diverse offerings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10942870\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10942870 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival3.jpg\" alt=\"Jesse Horn and Lena Hart performing in ReOrient 2012. Photo by David Allen Studio. \" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival3.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival3-400x266.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jesse Horn and Lena Hart performing in ReOrient 2012. (Photo: David Allen Studio.)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Golden Thread also produces full-length plays, but it seems like ReOrient is really the company’s flagship program.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s our signature offering at this point. It was founded in 1999, and the idea was to represent the Middle East, which is a very complex and diverse region. When you’re a small company producing only two shows a year, that’s really hard to do. So the festival was created out of a need and wish to represent more communities and more artists, and also to be able to showcase the diversity of nationalities, ethnicities, stories and artists of the region. The short play format really lends itself to that. It ends up being a celebration of the region as well as a great introduction for people who might not know much about the Middle East, because it’s so diverse and the offerings are so wide ranging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There are several Palestinian-themed events in the mix this year. Tell us about that. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year that we had quite a few plays submitted that are dealing with Israel and Palestine. The plays featured in the festival that are by Palestinian writers or are about Palestine are \u003cem>Bitterenders\u003c/em> by Hannah Khalil, who’s a Palestinian-British writer based out of London, and \u003cem>The House\u003c/em> by Tala Manassah and Mona Mansour. \u003cem>Bitterenders\u003c/em> is about a Palestinian family sharing their house with an Israeli family that has gone missing, and they have to figure out what’s going on. \u003cem>The House\u003c/em> is kind of an interesting play, because they’re writing a trilogy, and we produced \u003cem>The Letter\u003c/em>, the first play of the trilogy, at the last ReOrient. This one is a Palestinian American physics professor and his daughter, who’s a philosopher, dealing with the idea of being Palestinian through putting up these very nonprofessional plays, trying to figure out how to tell a story to an audience. They take a theatrical trip through the house that Kamal, the father, grew up in. It’s about how that house exists for him and also for his daughter, who’s never been there. We also have this amazing panel discussion that became possible through our ongoing partnership with Theater Without Borders: we’re bringing together Palestinian writers from all over the world to talk about what it means to be a Palestinian writer in the diaspora.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10942872\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival5.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10942872\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival5.jpg\" alt=\"Munaf Alsafi performing in ReOrient 2012. Photo by David Allen Studio. \" width=\"800\" height=\"656\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival5.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival5-400x328.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival5-732x600.jpg 732w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Munaf Alsafi performing in ReOrient 2012. (Photo: David Allen Studio.)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can you give us a sense of the breadth of the offerings in the festival? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have \u003cem>Ceasefire\u003c/em> by Ken Kaissar, an Israeli American writer writing about the Israeli-Lebanese conflict. We have Yussef El Guindi — who’s one of our family members at this point, we’ve produced so much of his work — writing about the Syrian conflict in terms of a couple dealing with this idea of home and what you leave behind. We have Hassan Abdulrazzak, an Iraqi British writer, writing about Saddam Hussein’s final days. And then we have Silva Semerciyan, an Armenian British writer, writing \u003cem>Turning Tricks\u003c/em>, which is about Eastern European human trafficking. The nice thing about it is that it can be Middle Eastern writers writing about the Middle East, Middle Eastern writers writing about the immigrant experience of Middle Easterners, or non-Middle Eastern writers writing about the Middle East. And finally, it could be Middle Easterners writing about something that’s not about the Middle East, because Middle Eastern artists think about other things too. This is the one place where we can put all of those plays together and really create a different conversation about what the region’s about and what the artists of the region are about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What are some of the considerations in picking plays for the festival? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the day we’re trying to find the best writers with the most unique voices, and we’re trying to find the stories that are not told elsewhere. That second part is quite important to us, because the Middle East as a region is quite misunderstood, and a lot of the stories that are in the mainstream media, or mainstream theater even, tend to be very one-sided and one-dimensional. It’s important to us that we’re giving voice to the reality of the Middle East, and that reality tends to be more complex that people expect. A lot of the audiences who come, especially those that might not be of Middle Eastern descent, are usually surprised by the plays, the voices, the characters, the relationships they see. That’s what I like, because as someone who’s grown up in the Middle East, what I experienced growing up is very different than what I see in the news every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ReOrient 2015\u003c/strong>\u003cem> \u003c/em>runs September 10–October 4 at Z Below in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.goldenthread.org/reorient2015\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit goldenthread.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The annual performing arts event features works by a diverse array of writers from the Iraqi-British dramatist Hassan Abdulrazzak to the Ken Kaissar, an Israeli-American playwright.",
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"title": "Golden Thread's ReOrient Weaves Together Middle Eastern Stories | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/reorient-2015/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘ReOrient Festival 2015’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Golden Thread’s annual celebration of Middle Eastern theater.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Sep. 10 – Oct. 4\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">Z Below\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/reorient-2015/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s Golden Thread Productions is entirely devoted to plays from and about the peoples and cultures of the Middle East. The company’s remit encompasses many very different nations, cultures and individual voices, and Golden Thread’s ReOrient festival of short plays gives a strong sense of that diversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The eight short plays in this year’s festival are split into two rotating evenings, and the event also includes a double bill of family-friendly pieces by Fairytale Players based on Iranian and Armenian folk tales; a recital by Syrian-American soprano Saousan Jarjour performing Middle Eastern folk songs reinterpreted through a jazz lens; and the ReOrient 2015 Forum of panel discussions about Middle Eastern theater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED spoke with Evren Odcikin, Golden Thread’s director of marketing and new plays, about the festival’s diverse offerings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10942870\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10942870 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival3.jpg\" alt=\"Jesse Horn and Lena Hart performing in ReOrient 2012. Photo by David Allen Studio. \" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival3.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival3-400x266.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jesse Horn and Lena Hart performing in ReOrient 2012. (Photo: David Allen Studio.)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Golden Thread also produces full-length plays, but it seems like ReOrient is really the company’s flagship program.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s our signature offering at this point. It was founded in 1999, and the idea was to represent the Middle East, which is a very complex and diverse region. When you’re a small company producing only two shows a year, that’s really hard to do. So the festival was created out of a need and wish to represent more communities and more artists, and also to be able to showcase the diversity of nationalities, ethnicities, stories and artists of the region. The short play format really lends itself to that. It ends up being a celebration of the region as well as a great introduction for people who might not know much about the Middle East, because it’s so diverse and the offerings are so wide ranging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There are several Palestinian-themed events in the mix this year. Tell us about that. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year that we had quite a few plays submitted that are dealing with Israel and Palestine. The plays featured in the festival that are by Palestinian writers or are about Palestine are \u003cem>Bitterenders\u003c/em> by Hannah Khalil, who’s a Palestinian-British writer based out of London, and \u003cem>The House\u003c/em> by Tala Manassah and Mona Mansour. \u003cem>Bitterenders\u003c/em> is about a Palestinian family sharing their house with an Israeli family that has gone missing, and they have to figure out what’s going on. \u003cem>The House\u003c/em> is kind of an interesting play, because they’re writing a trilogy, and we produced \u003cem>The Letter\u003c/em>, the first play of the trilogy, at the last ReOrient. This one is a Palestinian American physics professor and his daughter, who’s a philosopher, dealing with the idea of being Palestinian through putting up these very nonprofessional plays, trying to figure out how to tell a story to an audience. They take a theatrical trip through the house that Kamal, the father, grew up in. It’s about how that house exists for him and also for his daughter, who’s never been there. We also have this amazing panel discussion that became possible through our ongoing partnership with Theater Without Borders: we’re bringing together Palestinian writers from all over the world to talk about what it means to be a Palestinian writer in the diaspora.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10942872\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival5.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10942872\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival5.jpg\" alt=\"Munaf Alsafi performing in ReOrient 2012. Photo by David Allen Studio. \" width=\"800\" height=\"656\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival5.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival5-400x328.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/09/ReOrient2015_Festival5-732x600.jpg 732w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Munaf Alsafi performing in ReOrient 2012. (Photo: David Allen Studio.)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can you give us a sense of the breadth of the offerings in the festival? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have \u003cem>Ceasefire\u003c/em> by Ken Kaissar, an Israeli American writer writing about the Israeli-Lebanese conflict. We have Yussef El Guindi — who’s one of our family members at this point, we’ve produced so much of his work — writing about the Syrian conflict in terms of a couple dealing with this idea of home and what you leave behind. We have Hassan Abdulrazzak, an Iraqi British writer, writing about Saddam Hussein’s final days. And then we have Silva Semerciyan, an Armenian British writer, writing \u003cem>Turning Tricks\u003c/em>, which is about Eastern European human trafficking. The nice thing about it is that it can be Middle Eastern writers writing about the Middle East, Middle Eastern writers writing about the immigrant experience of Middle Easterners, or non-Middle Eastern writers writing about the Middle East. And finally, it could be Middle Easterners writing about something that’s not about the Middle East, because Middle Eastern artists think about other things too. This is the one place where we can put all of those plays together and really create a different conversation about what the region’s about and what the artists of the region are about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What are some of the considerations in picking plays for the festival? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the day we’re trying to find the best writers with the most unique voices, and we’re trying to find the stories that are not told elsewhere. That second part is quite important to us, because the Middle East as a region is quite misunderstood, and a lot of the stories that are in the mainstream media, or mainstream theater even, tend to be very one-sided and one-dimensional. It’s important to us that we’re giving voice to the reality of the Middle East, and that reality tends to be more complex that people expect. A lot of the audiences who come, especially those that might not be of Middle Eastern descent, are usually surprised by the plays, the voices, the characters, the relationships they see. That’s what I like, because as someone who’s grown up in the Middle East, what I experienced growing up is very different than what I see in the news every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ReOrient 2015\u003c/strong>\u003cem> \u003c/em>runs September 10–October 4 at Z Below in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.goldenthread.org/reorient2015\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit goldenthread.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Shotgun's 'Eurydice' Finds Love in the Land of the Dead",
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"content": "\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/Eurydice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘Eurydice’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Shotgun Players presents a bold, physical production of a play by Sarah Ruhl.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Through Oct. 4\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">Ashby Stage\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/Eurydice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area theater scene is smitten with Sarah Ruhl. The upcoming seasons at Marin Theatre Company, San Francisco Playhouse and the playwright’s usual haunt, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, all boast new works by Ruhl in their local or West Coast premieres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area’s love affair with Ruhl’s work began in 2004 with Berkeley Rep’s luminous production of \u003cem>Eurydice\u003c/em> directed by her frequent collaborator Les Waters. A half-dozen smaller companies around the Bay have performed the play since then. But that first breathtaking introduction to Ruhl’s fanciful, bittersweet vision, packed with humor, tenderness and magical realism, remains impossible to forget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A more sinister new production at Shotgun Players proves somehow to be equally indelible. Part of a season entirely made up of works by women, the Shotgun version is directed by Erika Chong Shuch, a choreographer who’s worked a lot with theater companies. Shuch’s staging is bold, aggressively physical and packed with stunning imagery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10928163\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice9.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10928163\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice9.jpg\" alt=\"Megan Trout, James Carpenter, Peter Griggs, Jeannine Anderson and Beth Wilmurt in Shotgun Players' Eurydice. (Photo: Pak Han)\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice9.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice9-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Megan Trout, James Carpenter, Peter Griggs, Jeannine Anderson and Beth Wilmurt in Shotgun Players’ \u003ci>Eurydice\u003c/i>. (Photo: Pak Han)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Eurydice\u003c/em> is a love story, but not the kind you might expect. The titular character is best known from Greek myth as the wife of the great poet-hero Orpheus who becomes the object of his quest when Eurydice dies and he goes down to the Underworld to retrieve her. Orpheus is told to head back home and his spouse will follow right behind him. But if he turns back to look at her, Eurydice will be lost forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The love between Megan Trout’s lively Eurydice and Kenny Toll’s dreamily preoccupied Orpheus is palpable. They talk philosophically of books and music while doing a playful, passionate dance involving wrestling, biting, choking and kissing. But this is not Orpheus’s story, and he fades into the background as soon as Eurydice descends into the Underworld.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This play is also a story about the love between fathers and daughters, and Eurydice’s touching reunion with her long-dead, nameless dad lies at its heart. James Carpenter exudes tenderness and stoic reserve as the father who has somehow managed to retain his memory of life and human language despite the requisite dunking in the river of forgetfulness that all the dead have to undergo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eurydice is not so fortunate. At first when she tries to speak, all that comes out are cacophonous bursts of thundering noise (the work of sound designer Matt Stines.) She doesn’t recognize her father either, or even the concept of a father. But he patiently teaches her. After all, they have all the time in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10928162\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice8.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10928162\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice8.jpg\" alt=\"Megan Trout as Eurydice in Shotgun Players' Eurydice. (Photo: Pak Han)\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice8.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice8-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Megan Trout as Eurydice in Shotgun Players’ \u003ci>Eurydice\u003c/i>. (Photo: Pak Han)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The land of the dead is far from a nice place. Sean Riley’s spectacular set is reminiscent of the interior of a very old ship, its rusty walls corroded green. There are metal pails everywhere, in tall stacks and on an elaborate pulley system that the father uses to create an outline of a room for his daughter in a land where rooms (and fathers) are forbidden. We know all the dos and don’ts because of a fretful chorus of stones who are always chiding father and daughter to knock it off and behave properly. There’s nothing particularly stone-like about the trio of grimly comical busybodies embodied by Jeannine Anderson, Peter Griggs and Beth Wilmurt in Christine Crook’s gaudy Burning Man-chic costumes, unless it’s their obstinate insistence on maintaining the status quo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eerily unnerving music pervades composed by Nils Frykdahl of the cult art-rock bands Idiot Flesh, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Faun Fables. Frykdahl also performs a major acting role in the play, perfectly cast as the Nasty Interesting Man, who stalks Eurydice with a predatory leer and insistent questioning about “interesting people.” Equal parts comical and menacing, Frykdahl morphs marvelously into the baby-talking, tricycle-riding Lord of the Underworld.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the humor and compassion that permeates the piece, it’s more chilling than heartwarming. Like the will-he-or-won’t-he conclusion of the original Orpheus myth, Ruhl’s version hinges on free will, an especially remarkable thing in the afterlife, where choices are supposed to be a thing of the past. The play also explores the notions of fate and inevitability. After all, you can’t cheat death forever. Even if somehow Orpheus were to succeed in bringing Eurydice back to the land of the living, it would mean tearing her away from the touching, unlikely new home she’s built with her long-lost father in the land of the dead. It’s a heartbreaking piece, and Shotgun’s production drives the tragedy home with unforgettable emotional rawness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Eurydice\u003c/em> runs through Oct. 4, 2015 at Ashby Stage in Berkeley. For \u003ca href=\"https://shotgunplayers.org/Online/eurydice\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit shotgunplayers.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/Eurydice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘Eurydice’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Shotgun Players presents a bold, physical production of a play by Sarah Ruhl.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Through Oct. 4\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">Ashby Stage\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/Eurydice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area theater scene is smitten with Sarah Ruhl. The upcoming seasons at Marin Theatre Company, San Francisco Playhouse and the playwright’s usual haunt, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, all boast new works by Ruhl in their local or West Coast premieres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area’s love affair with Ruhl’s work began in 2004 with Berkeley Rep’s luminous production of \u003cem>Eurydice\u003c/em> directed by her frequent collaborator Les Waters. A half-dozen smaller companies around the Bay have performed the play since then. But that first breathtaking introduction to Ruhl’s fanciful, bittersweet vision, packed with humor, tenderness and magical realism, remains impossible to forget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A more sinister new production at Shotgun Players proves somehow to be equally indelible. Part of a season entirely made up of works by women, the Shotgun version is directed by Erika Chong Shuch, a choreographer who’s worked a lot with theater companies. Shuch’s staging is bold, aggressively physical and packed with stunning imagery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10928163\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice9.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10928163\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice9.jpg\" alt=\"Megan Trout, James Carpenter, Peter Griggs, Jeannine Anderson and Beth Wilmurt in Shotgun Players' Eurydice. (Photo: Pak Han)\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice9.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice9-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Megan Trout, James Carpenter, Peter Griggs, Jeannine Anderson and Beth Wilmurt in Shotgun Players’ \u003ci>Eurydice\u003c/i>. (Photo: Pak Han)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Eurydice\u003c/em> is a love story, but not the kind you might expect. The titular character is best known from Greek myth as the wife of the great poet-hero Orpheus who becomes the object of his quest when Eurydice dies and he goes down to the Underworld to retrieve her. Orpheus is told to head back home and his spouse will follow right behind him. But if he turns back to look at her, Eurydice will be lost forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The love between Megan Trout’s lively Eurydice and Kenny Toll’s dreamily preoccupied Orpheus is palpable. They talk philosophically of books and music while doing a playful, passionate dance involving wrestling, biting, choking and kissing. But this is not Orpheus’s story, and he fades into the background as soon as Eurydice descends into the Underworld.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This play is also a story about the love between fathers and daughters, and Eurydice’s touching reunion with her long-dead, nameless dad lies at its heart. James Carpenter exudes tenderness and stoic reserve as the father who has somehow managed to retain his memory of life and human language despite the requisite dunking in the river of forgetfulness that all the dead have to undergo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eurydice is not so fortunate. At first when she tries to speak, all that comes out are cacophonous bursts of thundering noise (the work of sound designer Matt Stines.) She doesn’t recognize her father either, or even the concept of a father. But he patiently teaches her. After all, they have all the time in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10928162\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice8.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10928162\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice8.jpg\" alt=\"Megan Trout as Eurydice in Shotgun Players' Eurydice. (Photo: Pak Han)\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice8.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/eurydice8-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Megan Trout as Eurydice in Shotgun Players’ \u003ci>Eurydice\u003c/i>. (Photo: Pak Han)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The land of the dead is far from a nice place. Sean Riley’s spectacular set is reminiscent of the interior of a very old ship, its rusty walls corroded green. There are metal pails everywhere, in tall stacks and on an elaborate pulley system that the father uses to create an outline of a room for his daughter in a land where rooms (and fathers) are forbidden. We know all the dos and don’ts because of a fretful chorus of stones who are always chiding father and daughter to knock it off and behave properly. There’s nothing particularly stone-like about the trio of grimly comical busybodies embodied by Jeannine Anderson, Peter Griggs and Beth Wilmurt in Christine Crook’s gaudy Burning Man-chic costumes, unless it’s their obstinate insistence on maintaining the status quo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eerily unnerving music pervades composed by Nils Frykdahl of the cult art-rock bands Idiot Flesh, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Faun Fables. Frykdahl also performs a major acting role in the play, perfectly cast as the Nasty Interesting Man, who stalks Eurydice with a predatory leer and insistent questioning about “interesting people.” Equal parts comical and menacing, Frykdahl morphs marvelously into the baby-talking, tricycle-riding Lord of the Underworld.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the humor and compassion that permeates the piece, it’s more chilling than heartwarming. Like the will-he-or-won’t-he conclusion of the original Orpheus myth, Ruhl’s version hinges on free will, an especially remarkable thing in the afterlife, where choices are supposed to be a thing of the past. The play also explores the notions of fate and inevitability. After all, you can’t cheat death forever. Even if somehow Orpheus were to succeed in bringing Eurydice back to the land of the living, it would mean tearing her away from the touching, unlikely new home she’s built with her long-lost father in the land of the dead. It’s a heartbreaking piece, and Shotgun’s production drives the tragedy home with unforgettable emotional rawness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Eurydice\u003c/em> runs through Oct. 4, 2015 at Ashby Stage in Berkeley. For \u003ca href=\"https://shotgunplayers.org/Online/eurydice\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit shotgunplayers.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Fall is for Theater: Five Glorious Bay Area Plays",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/fallarts\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-400x400.png\" alt=\"FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-10915302\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-75x75.png 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fall’s an exciting time to be a Bay Area theatergoer. Most theaters are starting their new seasons and putting their best feet forward with a stunning selection of shows. We could easily name a dozen plays and musicals that are well worth seeing in the months to come, but here’s just a handful that we’re particularly eager to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"callout noborder\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10915654\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-oldest.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10915654 size-thumb\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-oldest.jpg\" alt=\"The Oldest Boy playwright Sarah Ruhl. (Photo: Courtesy of Marin Theatre Company)\" width=\"800\" height=\"546\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-oldest.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-oldest-400x273.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003ci>The Oldest Boy\u003c/i> playwright Sarah Ruhl. (Photo courtesy of Marin Theatre Company)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>The Oldest Boy\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Sept. 10 – Oct. 11\u003cbr>\nMarin Theatre Company\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.marintheatre.org/productions/the-oldest-boy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>More often than not, new Sarah Ruhl plays have come to the Bay Area through Berkeley Repertory Theatre (including next year’s \u003cem>For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday\u003c/em>), so it’s refreshing to see multiple theaters bringing the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship-winning playwright’s work to local stages. This season the Marin Theatre Company starts the ball rolling with \u003cem>The Oldest Boy\u003c/em>, and in November San Francisco Playhouse gets into the act with \u003cem>Stage Kiss\u003c/em>. But it’s the MTC production that is an absolute “not-miss”: in this play, which is seeing its West Coast premiere, an American woman grapples with the revelation that her 3-year-old might be a reincarnated Tibetan lama who may be needed elsewhere. MTC’s production is only the second of \u003cem>The Oldest Boy\u003c/em> after its 2014 premiere at Lincoln Center.\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"callout noborder\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10915656\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-Vrindavan1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10915656 size-thumb\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-Vrindavan1.jpg\" alt=\"The widows in Naatak’s new Hindi musical Vrindavan. (Photo: Amit Basu)\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-Vrindavan1.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-Vrindavan1-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The widows in Naatak’s new Hindi musical \u003ci>Vrindavan.\u003c/i> (Photo by Amit Basu)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Vrindavan\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Sept. 12 – 27\u003cbr>\nNaatak\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://naatak.com/portfolio/vrindavan-2015/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara-based Naatak, America’s largest Indian theater company, marks its 20th year and its 50th production in a big way with a grand Bollywood-style musical. Written and directed by Sujit Saraf and performed in Hindi with English supertitles, \u003cem>Vrindavan\u003c/em> is a story of the titular Indian city that has become home to thousands of widows, who are forbidden to remarry and are left begging in the streets. The musical takes its inspiration from a real-life controversy last year in which the Bollywood-superstar-turned-member-of-Parliament Hema Malini asserted that the widows are more well-off than they appear, and should stay in Bengal and not crowd this holy city.\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"callout noborder\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10915657\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-monstress.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumb wp-image-10915657\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-monstress.jpg\" alt=\"Monstress cast members Ogie Zulueta and Jomar Tagatac at a recent workshop. (Photo: Alessandra Mello)\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-monstress.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-monstress-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003ci>Monstress\u003c/i> cast members Ogie Zulueta and Jomar Tagatac at a recent workshop. (Photo by Alessandra Mello)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Monstress\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Sept. 16 – Nov. 22\u003cbr>\nAmerican Conservatory Theater\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/home/box_office/1516_season/monstress.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Monstress\u003c/em> stands out amid ACT’s season as a thoroughly San Francisco project from a company that doesn’t do a lot of those. Having both Philip Kan Gotanda and Camp Santo cofounder Sean San José adapting two Lysley Tenorio short stories — \u003ci>Monstress\u003c/i> and \u003ci>Save the I-Hotel\u003c/i>, both about Filipino American life in the city — ensures a fascinating alternate perspective on the Bay Area. Gotanda’s \u003cem>Save the I-Hotel\u003c/em> focuses on the 1970s eviction of Filipino residents from the International Hotel in the “Manilatown” neighborhood that was then centered on the edge of San Francisco’s Chinatown. San José’s \u003cem>Monstress \u003c/em>follows a Manila B-movie director lured to SF to work with a dodgy American filmmaker.\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"callout noborder\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10915652\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-ada2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10915652 size-thumb\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-ada2.jpg\" alt=\"fall-ada2\" width=\"800\" height=\"673\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-ada2.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-ada2-400x337.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-ada2-713x600.jpg 713w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003ci>Ada and the Memory Engine\u003c/i> playwright Lauren Gunderson. (Photo courtesy of the playwright.)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Ada and the Memory Engine\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Oct. 17 – Nov. 22\u003cbr>\nCentral Works\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://centralworks.org/ada-and-the-memory-engine/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>Prolific San Francisco playwright Lauren Gunderson returns to one of her favorite topics: overlooked female scientists of history. She’s already explored such characters in plays such as \u003cem>Silent Sky\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight.\u003c/em> For her latest work, which will see its world premiere in the Bay Area, she takes on the heady topic of Ada Lovelace, an early 19th century countess and estranged daughter of Lord Byron, who wrote the world’s first computer program in the 1840s. This is the 49th world premiere for Central Works, a Berkeley company that produces nothing but original works, and it features music by theatrical rock band the Kilbanes.\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"callout noborder\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10915655\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-rudemechs.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumb wp-image-10915655\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-rudemechs.jpg\" alt=\"Rude Mechanicals perform Stop Hitting Yourself at Cal Performances. (Photo: Bret Brookshire)\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-rudemechs.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-rudemechs-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rude Mechanicals perform \u003ci>Stop Hitting Yourself\u003c/i> at Cal Performances. (Photo by Bret Brookshire)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Stop Hitting Yourself\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Nov. 19 – 22\u003cbr>\nCal Performances\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://calperformances.org/performances/2015-16/theater/rude-mechanicals-stop-hitting-yourself.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>An acclaimed ensemble theater collective from Austin, Rude Mechanicals finally make their belated Bay Area debut with back-to-back shows at Z Space (\u003ca href=\"http://zspace.org/new-work/the-method-gun\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>The Method Gun\u003c/em>\u003c/a>) and Cal Performances. \u003cem>Stop Hitting Yourself\u003c/em> is a devised-theater extravaganza that combines political critique with big Busby Berkeley-style 1930s musicals in a story about a socialite trying to teach a wild man from the forest how to behave in high society.\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>And a few shout outs for your further viewing pleasure:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Blockbuster Season\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Sept. 25 – Oct. 18\u003cbr>\nMugwumpin\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.mugwumpin.org/blockbuster-season/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>In Love and Warcraft\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Nov. 12 – Dec. 12\u003cbr>\nCustom Made Theatre Co.\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.custommade.org/20152016-season/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Emma\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Dec. 2 – Jan. 2\u003cbr>\nTheatreWorks\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.theatreworks.org/shows/1516-season/emma\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/fallarts\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-400x400.png\" alt=\"FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-10915302\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/FallArtsPreview-2015-400x400-2-75x75.png 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fall’s an exciting time to be a Bay Area theatergoer. Most theaters are starting their new seasons and putting their best feet forward with a stunning selection of shows. We could easily name a dozen plays and musicals that are well worth seeing in the months to come, but here’s just a handful that we’re particularly eager to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"callout noborder\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10915654\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-oldest.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10915654 size-thumb\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-oldest.jpg\" alt=\"The Oldest Boy playwright Sarah Ruhl. (Photo: Courtesy of Marin Theatre Company)\" width=\"800\" height=\"546\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-oldest.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-oldest-400x273.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003ci>The Oldest Boy\u003c/i> playwright Sarah Ruhl. (Photo courtesy of Marin Theatre Company)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>The Oldest Boy\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Sept. 10 – Oct. 11\u003cbr>\nMarin Theatre Company\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.marintheatre.org/productions/the-oldest-boy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>More often than not, new Sarah Ruhl plays have come to the Bay Area through Berkeley Repertory Theatre (including next year’s \u003cem>For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday\u003c/em>), so it’s refreshing to see multiple theaters bringing the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship-winning playwright’s work to local stages. This season the Marin Theatre Company starts the ball rolling with \u003cem>The Oldest Boy\u003c/em>, and in November San Francisco Playhouse gets into the act with \u003cem>Stage Kiss\u003c/em>. But it’s the MTC production that is an absolute “not-miss”: in this play, which is seeing its West Coast premiere, an American woman grapples with the revelation that her 3-year-old might be a reincarnated Tibetan lama who may be needed elsewhere. MTC’s production is only the second of \u003cem>The Oldest Boy\u003c/em> after its 2014 premiere at Lincoln Center.\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"callout noborder\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10915656\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-Vrindavan1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10915656 size-thumb\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-Vrindavan1.jpg\" alt=\"The widows in Naatak’s new Hindi musical Vrindavan. (Photo: Amit Basu)\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-Vrindavan1.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-Vrindavan1-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The widows in Naatak’s new Hindi musical \u003ci>Vrindavan.\u003c/i> (Photo by Amit Basu)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Vrindavan\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Sept. 12 – 27\u003cbr>\nNaatak\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://naatak.com/portfolio/vrindavan-2015/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara-based Naatak, America’s largest Indian theater company, marks its 20th year and its 50th production in a big way with a grand Bollywood-style musical. Written and directed by Sujit Saraf and performed in Hindi with English supertitles, \u003cem>Vrindavan\u003c/em> is a story of the titular Indian city that has become home to thousands of widows, who are forbidden to remarry and are left begging in the streets. The musical takes its inspiration from a real-life controversy last year in which the Bollywood-superstar-turned-member-of-Parliament Hema Malini asserted that the widows are more well-off than they appear, and should stay in Bengal and not crowd this holy city.\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"callout noborder\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10915657\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-monstress.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumb wp-image-10915657\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-monstress.jpg\" alt=\"Monstress cast members Ogie Zulueta and Jomar Tagatac at a recent workshop. (Photo: Alessandra Mello)\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-monstress.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-monstress-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003ci>Monstress\u003c/i> cast members Ogie Zulueta and Jomar Tagatac at a recent workshop. (Photo by Alessandra Mello)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Monstress\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Sept. 16 – Nov. 22\u003cbr>\nAmerican Conservatory Theater\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/home/box_office/1516_season/monstress.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Monstress\u003c/em> stands out amid ACT’s season as a thoroughly San Francisco project from a company that doesn’t do a lot of those. Having both Philip Kan Gotanda and Camp Santo cofounder Sean San José adapting two Lysley Tenorio short stories — \u003ci>Monstress\u003c/i> and \u003ci>Save the I-Hotel\u003c/i>, both about Filipino American life in the city — ensures a fascinating alternate perspective on the Bay Area. Gotanda’s \u003cem>Save the I-Hotel\u003c/em> focuses on the 1970s eviction of Filipino residents from the International Hotel in the “Manilatown” neighborhood that was then centered on the edge of San Francisco’s Chinatown. San José’s \u003cem>Monstress \u003c/em>follows a Manila B-movie director lured to SF to work with a dodgy American filmmaker.\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"callout noborder\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10915652\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-ada2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10915652 size-thumb\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-ada2.jpg\" alt=\"fall-ada2\" width=\"800\" height=\"673\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-ada2.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-ada2-400x337.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-ada2-713x600.jpg 713w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003ci>Ada and the Memory Engine\u003c/i> playwright Lauren Gunderson. (Photo courtesy of the playwright.)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Ada and the Memory Engine\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Oct. 17 – Nov. 22\u003cbr>\nCentral Works\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://centralworks.org/ada-and-the-memory-engine/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>Prolific San Francisco playwright Lauren Gunderson returns to one of her favorite topics: overlooked female scientists of history. She’s already explored such characters in plays such as \u003cem>Silent Sky\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight.\u003c/em> For her latest work, which will see its world premiere in the Bay Area, she takes on the heady topic of Ada Lovelace, an early 19th century countess and estranged daughter of Lord Byron, who wrote the world’s first computer program in the 1840s. This is the 49th world premiere for Central Works, a Berkeley company that produces nothing but original works, and it features music by theatrical rock band the Kilbanes.\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"callout noborder\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10915655\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-rudemechs.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumb wp-image-10915655\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-rudemechs.jpg\" alt=\"Rude Mechanicals perform Stop Hitting Yourself at Cal Performances. (Photo: Bret Brookshire)\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-rudemechs.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/fall-rudemechs-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rude Mechanicals perform \u003ci>Stop Hitting Yourself\u003c/i> at Cal Performances. (Photo by Bret Brookshire)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Stop Hitting Yourself\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Nov. 19 – 22\u003cbr>\nCal Performances\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://calperformances.org/performances/2015-16/theater/rude-mechanicals-stop-hitting-yourself.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>An acclaimed ensemble theater collective from Austin, Rude Mechanicals finally make their belated Bay Area debut with back-to-back shows at Z Space (\u003ca href=\"http://zspace.org/new-work/the-method-gun\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>The Method Gun\u003c/em>\u003c/a>) and Cal Performances. \u003cem>Stop Hitting Yourself\u003c/em> is a devised-theater extravaganza that combines political critique with big Busby Berkeley-style 1930s musicals in a story about a socialite trying to teach a wild man from the forest how to behave in high society.\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>And a few shout outs for your further viewing pleasure:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Blockbuster Season\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Sept. 25 – Oct. 18\u003cbr>\nMugwumpin\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.mugwumpin.org/blockbuster-season/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>In Love and Warcraft\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Nov. 12 – Dec. 12\u003cbr>\nCustom Made Theatre Co.\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.custommade.org/20152016-season/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Emma\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch5>Dec. 2 – Jan. 2\u003cbr>\nTheatreWorks\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.theatreworks.org/shows/1516-season/emma\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and information\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Tearing Down the System with Anna Deavere Smith",
"headTitle": "Tearing Down the System with Anna Deavere Smith | KQED",
"content": "\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/notes-from-the-field/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘Notes from the Field: Doing time in Education, the California Chapter’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Lauded documentary theater artist Anna Deavere Smith presents a show about breaking the school to prison pipeline.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Through Aug. 2\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">Berkeley Repertory Theatre\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/notes-from-the-field/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Anna Deavere Smith is an old hand at tackling complex issues in down-to-earth terms without reducing their complexity. In her early solo shows \u003cem>Fires in the Mirror \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, \u003c/em>she explored how long-simmering racial tensions exploded into riots in Brooklyn and Los Angeles in the early 1990s. The performer’s signature style of performing verbatim excerpts of her own interviews proved to be especially poignant in those documentary theater pieces as she embodied leaders, bystanders, activists and other figures on all sides of the divide talking about their experience of difference through the same face. The fact that Smith herself is a light-skinned African American woman only helped drive her points home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith has continued to try to make sense of overwhelmingly complicated social issues by embodying contrasting perspectives in subsequent pieces such as \u003cem>Let Me Down Easy. \u003c/em>This look at the thorny American health care system came to Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2011.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith’s new piece at Berkeley Rep carries the unwieldy title \u003cem>Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, The California Chapter.\u003c/em> It’s the latest stage of a work in progress about the school-to-prison pipeline for underserved youth–primarily of color–from impoverished communities in the United States. Although it’s a full-length drama, clocking in at two hours and 20 minutes, Smith is presenting it in an unfinished form.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sections that are in place, however, appear polished. Smith humanizes her subjects by preserving their verbal tics, intonation and body language in a manner that’s sometimes amusing, and that serves to accentuate rather than undermine their credibility. These aren’t just disembodied points of view; these are real people with real lived experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith becomes teachers, counselors, ex-cons, judges, activists, civic leaders and witnesses of police violence in segments skillfully woven together so that one speaker often seems to be using the last person’s testimony as a jumping-off point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Costume and set changes are minimal. Occasionally Smith puts on a jacket to become someone new. But more often, the shift is pure body language. In director Leah C. Gardiner’s smooth staging, the stagehands seamlessly move chairs and tables to and fro between segments so that each interview has a different, albeit minimalist, setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This one isn’t quite a solo show: Bay Area jazz composer Marcus Shelby is onstage the whole time, accentuating key sections with somber musical accompaniment on double bass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10842136\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/notesfield7.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10842136\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/notesfield7.jpg\" alt=\"Anna Deavere Smith portrays Stephanie Williams, emotional support teacher in Philadelphia, in Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, The California Chapter, a one-woman show featuring stories about California’s devastating school-to-prison pipeline. (Photo: kevinberne.com)\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/notesfield7.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/notesfield7-400x266.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anna Deavere Smith portrays Stephanie Williams, emotional support teacher in Philadelphia, in \u003ci>Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, The California Chapter\u003c/i>, a one-woman show featuring stories about California’s devastating school-to-prison pipeline. (Photo: kevinberne.com)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Smith is taking on a huge and multifaceted subject here. She talks about children traumatized at an early age who are just passed along from school to school to juvenile hall without addressing what leads them to act out in the first place. Her subjects describe the criminalization of everyday life for people of color, in which police can stop you on any pretext and can brutalize or kill you for “resisting arrest” even when there was no crime they could arrest you for in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, though, this is all the same system, a result of the allocation of funds and resources to the criminal justice system instead of education and social services. Whole segments of the population are effectively written off as a loss before they even get started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How can a system so mammoth and so fixed possibly be changed? Well, that’s where a bold experiment comes in. The whole second act of the show is “homework.” The audience is split up into small groups assigned to different areas all over the theater grounds to participate in guided discussions with facilitators with dry-erase boards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In our group, however, there really wasn’t any conversation. We were asked to blurt out phrases about what needed to happen and what a better future would look like, all of which were written down on the board. We were asked to write down a description of positive change and to state what we individually are prepared to commit to do to help change this sad state of affairs. Only a couple of people came forward, and it was to talk about things they were already doing. Other groups seemed slightly livelier, but the format didn’t seem to be designed for much back-and-forth discussion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a frustrating experience to feel so impotent and disengaged in any solution to such entrenched systematic injustice. But making people uncomfortable may be part of the point. When we’re asked what we’re personally willing to do to change things, it’s embarrassing to come up empty. As a part of the theatrical experience, the brainstorming sessions seem awkward. But as a way of pursuing an issue further than just hearing about it for a couple of hours, it seems worth a try.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, The California Chapter\u003c/em> runs through August 2, 2015 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit berkeleyrep.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/notes-from-the-field/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘Notes from the Field: Doing time in Education, the California Chapter’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Lauded documentary theater artist Anna Deavere Smith presents a show about breaking the school to prison pipeline.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Through Aug. 2\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">Berkeley Repertory Theatre\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/notes-from-the-field/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Anna Deavere Smith is an old hand at tackling complex issues in down-to-earth terms without reducing their complexity. In her early solo shows \u003cem>Fires in the Mirror \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, \u003c/em>she explored how long-simmering racial tensions exploded into riots in Brooklyn and Los Angeles in the early 1990s. The performer’s signature style of performing verbatim excerpts of her own interviews proved to be especially poignant in those documentary theater pieces as she embodied leaders, bystanders, activists and other figures on all sides of the divide talking about their experience of difference through the same face. The fact that Smith herself is a light-skinned African American woman only helped drive her points home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith has continued to try to make sense of overwhelmingly complicated social issues by embodying contrasting perspectives in subsequent pieces such as \u003cem>Let Me Down Easy. \u003c/em>This look at the thorny American health care system came to Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2011.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith’s new piece at Berkeley Rep carries the unwieldy title \u003cem>Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, The California Chapter.\u003c/em> It’s the latest stage of a work in progress about the school-to-prison pipeline for underserved youth–primarily of color–from impoverished communities in the United States. Although it’s a full-length drama, clocking in at two hours and 20 minutes, Smith is presenting it in an unfinished form.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sections that are in place, however, appear polished. Smith humanizes her subjects by preserving their verbal tics, intonation and body language in a manner that’s sometimes amusing, and that serves to accentuate rather than undermine their credibility. These aren’t just disembodied points of view; these are real people with real lived experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith becomes teachers, counselors, ex-cons, judges, activists, civic leaders and witnesses of police violence in segments skillfully woven together so that one speaker often seems to be using the last person’s testimony as a jumping-off point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Costume and set changes are minimal. Occasionally Smith puts on a jacket to become someone new. But more often, the shift is pure body language. In director Leah C. Gardiner’s smooth staging, the stagehands seamlessly move chairs and tables to and fro between segments so that each interview has a different, albeit minimalist, setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This one isn’t quite a solo show: Bay Area jazz composer Marcus Shelby is onstage the whole time, accentuating key sections with somber musical accompaniment on double bass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10842136\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/notesfield7.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10842136\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/notesfield7.jpg\" alt=\"Anna Deavere Smith portrays Stephanie Williams, emotional support teacher in Philadelphia, in Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, The California Chapter, a one-woman show featuring stories about California’s devastating school-to-prison pipeline. (Photo: kevinberne.com)\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/notesfield7.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/notesfield7-400x266.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anna Deavere Smith portrays Stephanie Williams, emotional support teacher in Philadelphia, in \u003ci>Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, The California Chapter\u003c/i>, a one-woman show featuring stories about California’s devastating school-to-prison pipeline. (Photo: kevinberne.com)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Smith is taking on a huge and multifaceted subject here. She talks about children traumatized at an early age who are just passed along from school to school to juvenile hall without addressing what leads them to act out in the first place. Her subjects describe the criminalization of everyday life for people of color, in which police can stop you on any pretext and can brutalize or kill you for “resisting arrest” even when there was no crime they could arrest you for in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, though, this is all the same system, a result of the allocation of funds and resources to the criminal justice system instead of education and social services. Whole segments of the population are effectively written off as a loss before they even get started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How can a system so mammoth and so fixed possibly be changed? Well, that’s where a bold experiment comes in. The whole second act of the show is “homework.” The audience is split up into small groups assigned to different areas all over the theater grounds to participate in guided discussions with facilitators with dry-erase boards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In our group, however, there really wasn’t any conversation. We were asked to blurt out phrases about what needed to happen and what a better future would look like, all of which were written down on the board. We were asked to write down a description of positive change and to state what we individually are prepared to commit to do to help change this sad state of affairs. Only a couple of people came forward, and it was to talk about things they were already doing. Other groups seemed slightly livelier, but the format didn’t seem to be designed for much back-and-forth discussion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a frustrating experience to feel so impotent and disengaged in any solution to such entrenched systematic injustice. But making people uncomfortable may be part of the point. When we’re asked what we’re personally willing to do to change things, it’s embarrassing to come up empty. As a part of the theatrical experience, the brainstorming sessions seem awkward. But as a way of pursuing an issue further than just hearing about it for a couple of hours, it seems worth a try.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, The California Chapter\u003c/em> runs through August 2, 2015 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit berkeleyrep.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A Rarely Glimpsed Spanish 'Dream' at Cal Shakes",
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"content": "\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/life-is-a-dream/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘Life Is a Dream’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Cal Shakes hosts the 16th Century Spanish drama for the first time\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Through July 26, 2015\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">California Shakespeare Theater\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/life-is-a-dream/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s \u003cem>Life Is a Dream\u003c/em> at California Shakespeare Theater is a rare treat. Bay Area audiences seldom have a chance to see one of the great works of the Golden Age of Spanish drama, and it’s never happened at Cal Shakes before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Less interested than his predecessors in exploring William Shakespeare’s less popular plays, outgoing artistic director Jonathan Moscone added more modern classics to the company’s seasons during his 15 year tenure with the company, such as plays by George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward. Moscone also started bringing in new adaptations of classic works, like \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/A-Romp-Through-the-Restoration-2532338.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Restoration Comedy\u003c/a>\u003c/em> by Amy Freed and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/sprawling-pastures/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven\u003c/a> \u003c/em>by Octavio Solis. In recent seasons Moscone has made a point of bringing more ethnic diversity to the Cal Shakes stage with plays such as George C. Wolfe’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/a-classic-with-spunk/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Spunk\u003c/a>\u003c/em> and Richard Montoya’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2013/06/06/cal_shakes_american_night_is_juan_in_a_million/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">American Night: The Ballad of Juan José\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In spite of the breadth of Cal Shakes’ programming, \u003cem>Life Is a Dream\u003c/em> is an unusual departure for the company. It’s the theater’s first venture into Spanish drama and only the third time it’s taken on a 16th century classic by someone other than Shakespeare in its 41-year history (or the fourth if you count Freed’s \u003cem>Restoration Comedy\u003c/em>), after John Webster’s \u003cem>The Duchess of Malfi\u003c/em> in 1979 and Molière’s \u003cem>Scapin, the Cheat\u003c/em> in 1998. \u003cem>Life\u003c/em> \u003cem>Is a Dream\u003c/em> also features an ethnically diverse cast of terrific Bay Area actors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10836476\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10836476\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream2.jpg\" alt=\"Julian López-Morillas as Clotaldo and Sarah Nina Hayon as Rosaura in California Shakespeare Theater’s Life Is a Dream. (Photo: Kevin Berne)\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream2.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream2-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julian López-Morillas as Clotaldo and Sarah Nina Hayon as Rosaura in California Shakespeare Theater’s \u003ci>Life Is a Dream\u003c/i>. (Photo: Kevin Berne)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In this 1635 drama, a king (Adrian Roberts, exuding regal gravitas) learns of a prophecy that his infant son would bring doom to the kingdom and his father. So he does what anyone would do: He throws the baby in a remote prison to be raised like an animal in a cage, with his jailer (an eloquent and fretful Julian López-Morillas) as his only human contact. Then he gives his son one chance to defy fate by having the boy sedated and brought to the palace to wake up with all the privileges of princehood. If he proves the prophecy wrong and uses his power wisely, he’ll be allowed to inherit the kingdom. If he abuses the power, he’ll wake up back in prison and be told it was all just a dream, and his foreign cousins (the smooth Tristan Cunningham and Amir Abdullah) will marry and take the throne.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Calderón is playing with a then-common trope of a peasant, drunkard or other “low” person who awakens in a palace to find everyone treating him as royalty. The story goes back at least as far as a tale told about 8th-century Caliph Harun al-Rashid in \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.arabiantales.org/sleeper-awakened/sleeperawakened.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Arabian Nights\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, and William Shakespeare played with the theme in \u003cem>A Midsummer Night’s Dream\u003c/em> and in the seldom-staged induction to \u003cem>The Taming of the Shrew.\u003c/em> It’s not just a prank in Calderón’s version; the fate of the nation rests on the outcome of this perverse experiment, and it provides an opportunity for a great deal of philosophizing about the nature of life as a dream within a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The original play is set in Poland, but the deftly pared-down 2007 translation by Nilo Cruz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of \u003cem>Anna in the Tropics\u003c/em>, dispenses with the specific locale to embrace the folk tale quality that pervades the narrative. Even in his lean one-act adaptation, it’s a philosophical fable, which means a lot of long speeches. But Magic Theatre artistic director Loretta Greco gives the play a fast-paced and dynamic staging that leavens all the musing with humor and action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Making her Cal Shakes debut, Greco sets the play in an all-times-at-once semi-modernity that’s become fashionable for Shakespearean histories and tragedies, with lots of black leather and swords, handguns and helicopters. Cliff Caruthers’ score is heavy on new age tinkling to accentuate the dreaminess of it all. The composer also amps up Dave Maier’s wild battle scenes with propulsive drumming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10836477\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10836477\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream3.jpg\" alt=\"Jomar Tagatac as the servant Clarin in California Shakespeare Theater’s Life Is a Dream. (Photo: Kevin Berne)\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream3.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream3-400x266.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jomar Tagatac as the servant Clarin in California Shakespeare Theater’s \u003ci>Life Is a Dream\u003c/i>. (Photo: Kevin Berne)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This production reunites the two leads of Greco’s most recent production at the Magic, Luis Alfaro’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2015/06/04/new-dramatic-trilogy-tackles-faith-and-community-in-the-central-valley/\">This Golden State, Part One: Delano\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. Sean San José is fantastically feral as the unsocialized prince Segismundo, full of childish rage and untamed lusts, which makes his time in the palace a hilarious and disturbing reign of terror. Sarah Nina Hayon’s crafty and resolute heroine Rosaura carries her own complicated storyline. Aside from being a woman dressed as a man, she’s also on a bloody quest for revenge against the ex-boyfriend who abandoned her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another Magic regular, Jomar Tagatac, tags along as the wisecracking servant who also points out how incredibly messed up this whole situation is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a strange and convoluted play that’s less driven by plot than by reflections on the nature of fate and free will, and some of the attitudes can be vexing to a modern audience. Segismundo refraining from raping a woman who comes to him for help is portrayed as a heroic act. And a smart, independent woman managing to marry the two-timing cad she’s in love with is seen as a happy ending (see also Shakespeare’s \u003cem>All’s Well That Ends Well\u003c/em>). More than anything, it’s a fascinating glimpse into a theatrical era that we rarely get to experience in the here and now, which seems like a great thing for a Shakespeare company to be doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Life Is a Dream\u003c/em> runs through July 26, 2015 at Bruns Memorial Amphitheater in Orinda. For \u003ca href=\"http://calshakes.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit calshakes.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/life-is-a-dream/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘Life Is a Dream’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Cal Shakes hosts the 16th Century Spanish drama for the first time\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Through July 26, 2015\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">California Shakespeare Theater\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/life-is-a-dream/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s \u003cem>Life Is a Dream\u003c/em> at California Shakespeare Theater is a rare treat. Bay Area audiences seldom have a chance to see one of the great works of the Golden Age of Spanish drama, and it’s never happened at Cal Shakes before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Less interested than his predecessors in exploring William Shakespeare’s less popular plays, outgoing artistic director Jonathan Moscone added more modern classics to the company’s seasons during his 15 year tenure with the company, such as plays by George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward. Moscone also started bringing in new adaptations of classic works, like \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/A-Romp-Through-the-Restoration-2532338.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Restoration Comedy\u003c/a>\u003c/em> by Amy Freed and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/sprawling-pastures/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven\u003c/a> \u003c/em>by Octavio Solis. In recent seasons Moscone has made a point of bringing more ethnic diversity to the Cal Shakes stage with plays such as George C. Wolfe’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/a-classic-with-spunk/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Spunk\u003c/a>\u003c/em> and Richard Montoya’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2013/06/06/cal_shakes_american_night_is_juan_in_a_million/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">American Night: The Ballad of Juan José\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In spite of the breadth of Cal Shakes’ programming, \u003cem>Life Is a Dream\u003c/em> is an unusual departure for the company. It’s the theater’s first venture into Spanish drama and only the third time it’s taken on a 16th century classic by someone other than Shakespeare in its 41-year history (or the fourth if you count Freed’s \u003cem>Restoration Comedy\u003c/em>), after John Webster’s \u003cem>The Duchess of Malfi\u003c/em> in 1979 and Molière’s \u003cem>Scapin, the Cheat\u003c/em> in 1998. \u003cem>Life\u003c/em> \u003cem>Is a Dream\u003c/em> also features an ethnically diverse cast of terrific Bay Area actors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10836476\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10836476\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream2.jpg\" alt=\"Julian López-Morillas as Clotaldo and Sarah Nina Hayon as Rosaura in California Shakespeare Theater’s Life Is a Dream. (Photo: Kevin Berne)\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream2.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream2-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julian López-Morillas as Clotaldo and Sarah Nina Hayon as Rosaura in California Shakespeare Theater’s \u003ci>Life Is a Dream\u003c/i>. (Photo: Kevin Berne)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In this 1635 drama, a king (Adrian Roberts, exuding regal gravitas) learns of a prophecy that his infant son would bring doom to the kingdom and his father. So he does what anyone would do: He throws the baby in a remote prison to be raised like an animal in a cage, with his jailer (an eloquent and fretful Julian López-Morillas) as his only human contact. Then he gives his son one chance to defy fate by having the boy sedated and brought to the palace to wake up with all the privileges of princehood. If he proves the prophecy wrong and uses his power wisely, he’ll be allowed to inherit the kingdom. If he abuses the power, he’ll wake up back in prison and be told it was all just a dream, and his foreign cousins (the smooth Tristan Cunningham and Amir Abdullah) will marry and take the throne.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Calderón is playing with a then-common trope of a peasant, drunkard or other “low” person who awakens in a palace to find everyone treating him as royalty. The story goes back at least as far as a tale told about 8th-century Caliph Harun al-Rashid in \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.arabiantales.org/sleeper-awakened/sleeperawakened.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Arabian Nights\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, and William Shakespeare played with the theme in \u003cem>A Midsummer Night’s Dream\u003c/em> and in the seldom-staged induction to \u003cem>The Taming of the Shrew.\u003c/em> It’s not just a prank in Calderón’s version; the fate of the nation rests on the outcome of this perverse experiment, and it provides an opportunity for a great deal of philosophizing about the nature of life as a dream within a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The original play is set in Poland, but the deftly pared-down 2007 translation by Nilo Cruz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of \u003cem>Anna in the Tropics\u003c/em>, dispenses with the specific locale to embrace the folk tale quality that pervades the narrative. Even in his lean one-act adaptation, it’s a philosophical fable, which means a lot of long speeches. But Magic Theatre artistic director Loretta Greco gives the play a fast-paced and dynamic staging that leavens all the musing with humor and action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Making her Cal Shakes debut, Greco sets the play in an all-times-at-once semi-modernity that’s become fashionable for Shakespearean histories and tragedies, with lots of black leather and swords, handguns and helicopters. Cliff Caruthers’ score is heavy on new age tinkling to accentuate the dreaminess of it all. The composer also amps up Dave Maier’s wild battle scenes with propulsive drumming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10836477\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10836477\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream3.jpg\" alt=\"Jomar Tagatac as the servant Clarin in California Shakespeare Theater’s Life Is a Dream. (Photo: Kevin Berne)\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream3.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/lifeisadream3-400x266.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jomar Tagatac as the servant Clarin in California Shakespeare Theater’s \u003ci>Life Is a Dream\u003c/i>. (Photo: Kevin Berne)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This production reunites the two leads of Greco’s most recent production at the Magic, Luis Alfaro’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2015/06/04/new-dramatic-trilogy-tackles-faith-and-community-in-the-central-valley/\">This Golden State, Part One: Delano\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. Sean San José is fantastically feral as the unsocialized prince Segismundo, full of childish rage and untamed lusts, which makes his time in the palace a hilarious and disturbing reign of terror. Sarah Nina Hayon’s crafty and resolute heroine Rosaura carries her own complicated storyline. Aside from being a woman dressed as a man, she’s also on a bloody quest for revenge against the ex-boyfriend who abandoned her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another Magic regular, Jomar Tagatac, tags along as the wisecracking servant who also points out how incredibly messed up this whole situation is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a strange and convoluted play that’s less driven by plot than by reflections on the nature of fate and free will, and some of the attitudes can be vexing to a modern audience. Segismundo refraining from raping a woman who comes to him for help is portrayed as a heroic act. And a smart, independent woman managing to marry the two-timing cad she’s in love with is seen as a happy ending (see also Shakespeare’s \u003cem>All’s Well That Ends Well\u003c/em>). More than anything, it’s a fascinating glimpse into a theatrical era that we rarely get to experience in the here and now, which seems like a great thing for a Shakespeare company to be doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Life Is a Dream\u003c/em> runs through July 26, 2015 at Bruns Memorial Amphitheater in Orinda. For \u003ca href=\"http://calshakes.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit calshakes.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Two People, Three Relationships in Bittersweet Theatrical Collaboration",
"headTitle": "Two People, Three Relationships in Bittersweet Theatrical Collaboration | KQED",
"content": "\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/now-for-now/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘Now for Now’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Actors Mark Jackson and Megan Trout explore how three different relationships unfold over time.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Through July 26, 2015\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">Z Below\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/now-for-now/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>It’s funny how relationships develop. The prolific and inventive writer-director-performer Mark Jackson and intense up-and-coming actress Megan Trout have been working together off and on since Trout was in college. Jackson directed Trout in the devised work \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/juliet-and-juliet-and-juliet/\">Juliet\u003c/a>\u003c/em> at San Francisco State in 2010, when Trout was a student there, then in \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/stages-of-grief/\">Metamorphosis\u003c/a>\u003c/em> at Aurora Theatre Company and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/bonnie-and-clydes-barn-dance-jamboree/\">Bonnie and Clyde\u003c/a> \u003c/em>at Shotgun Players.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more than a year, Trout and Jackson have been collaborating on a two-person performance piece\u003cem>, Now for Now\u003c/em>, that charts the relationship of a fictional Mark and Megan over the course of 40 years. After several workshops, the play is premiering at Z Below in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two actor take turns recounting landmarks in their lives and in their on-again, off-again relationship, often offering very different perspectives on the same event. In one version, they’re father and daughter. In another, boyfriend and girlfriend. And in a third, teacher and student. They’re substantially the same characters each time, with most of the same milestones and chapters in their story. It’s just that the nature of their relationship has changed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s nothing like parent-and-child characters abruptly morphing into lovers to set a tone of unease. \u003cem>Now for Now\u003c/em> is peppered with intensely uncomfortable moments, from simulated sexual acts to the kind of cruel personal attacks that can never be unsaid. Trout sets the tone at the end of her introduction by saying, “So I’m going to go ahead and start by pissing myself in front of you,” and seemingly proceeding to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In these highly personal, vulnerable moments, the onlooker’s impulse is to wince or look away—or rather it would be if the abstracted, presentational quality of the performance were not engineered to create aesthetic distance. Even so, the theater is often eerily quiet. It’s as if the audience is holding its breath, relieved by the occasional burst of laughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10830525\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/nowfornow3801.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10830525\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/nowfornow3801.jpg\" alt=\"Mark Jackson and Megan Trout in their multimedia physical theater piece Now for Now at Z Below. (Photo: Tracy Martin)\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/nowfornow3801.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/nowfornow3801-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Jackson and Megan Trout in their multimedia physical theater piece \u003ci>Now for Now\u003c/i> at Z Below. (Photo: Tracy Martin)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The show includes frequent reminders that this is a carefully scripted performance rather than a confessional. There’s a tight, ritualistic structure to the back-and-forth narration, broken up by some beautifully melancholy and often funny dance sequences: an intense tango involving rock-paper-scissors and hand-slap games, a tender slow dance circling around and atop a stool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the story is fictional, Trout and Jackson blur the lines by including a few autobiographical details of past pursuits and travels. They begin the performance frantically setting up their MacBooks and projection equipment while the seemingly “real” Megan and Mark give amusingly contradictory accounts of what we’re about to see. Meanwhile, the emotional baggage of the actors’ fictional selves starts to emerge. Each version of the narrative involves the actors recalling events that happened when their characters were considerably older than the performers are now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One characteristic of all the stories is that the two characters are apart more than they’re together over the years. He’s always traveling abroad. She struggles with addiction. This drifting apart and together again seems like a terrible thing when they’re a family. But when the characters are in a romance, it’s the most natural thing. Interestingly, their relationship seems most emotionally raw in the teacher-student version, in which the ties between Trout and Jackson’s characters are loosest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The characters stay in touch largely through Skype. Although we don’t see those interactions, the performers make skillful use of iPhone and MacBook cameras to project the faces of one listening to the other’s story. The technology is most effectively employed when cameras project the actors in the process of writing emails or text messages. These moments are more interesting for what is typed and deleted than what is actually sent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately \u003cem>Now for Now \u003c/em>is largely about missed opportunities and regret. One advantage to seeing so many variations upon this theme from so many angles is that one version or another is likely to strike a chord and make viewers reflect on something in a relationship of any kind that they wish they’d done differently. One often repeated phrase that trails off without elaboration in the show –“I should have…” –is one of the saddest things in the world to have to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Now for Now\u003c/em> runs through July 26, 2015 at Z Below in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://nowfornowsf.org\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit nowfornowsf.org.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/now-for-now/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘Now for Now’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Actors Mark Jackson and Megan Trout explore how three different relationships unfold over time.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Through July 26, 2015\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">Z Below\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/now-for-now/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>It’s funny how relationships develop. The prolific and inventive writer-director-performer Mark Jackson and intense up-and-coming actress Megan Trout have been working together off and on since Trout was in college. Jackson directed Trout in the devised work \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/juliet-and-juliet-and-juliet/\">Juliet\u003c/a>\u003c/em> at San Francisco State in 2010, when Trout was a student there, then in \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/stages-of-grief/\">Metamorphosis\u003c/a>\u003c/em> at Aurora Theatre Company and \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/bonnie-and-clydes-barn-dance-jamboree/\">Bonnie and Clyde\u003c/a> \u003c/em>at Shotgun Players.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more than a year, Trout and Jackson have been collaborating on a two-person performance piece\u003cem>, Now for Now\u003c/em>, that charts the relationship of a fictional Mark and Megan over the course of 40 years. After several workshops, the play is premiering at Z Below in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two actor take turns recounting landmarks in their lives and in their on-again, off-again relationship, often offering very different perspectives on the same event. In one version, they’re father and daughter. In another, boyfriend and girlfriend. And in a third, teacher and student. They’re substantially the same characters each time, with most of the same milestones and chapters in their story. It’s just that the nature of their relationship has changed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s nothing like parent-and-child characters abruptly morphing into lovers to set a tone of unease. \u003cem>Now for Now\u003c/em> is peppered with intensely uncomfortable moments, from simulated sexual acts to the kind of cruel personal attacks that can never be unsaid. Trout sets the tone at the end of her introduction by saying, “So I’m going to go ahead and start by pissing myself in front of you,” and seemingly proceeding to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In these highly personal, vulnerable moments, the onlooker’s impulse is to wince or look away—or rather it would be if the abstracted, presentational quality of the performance were not engineered to create aesthetic distance. Even so, the theater is often eerily quiet. It’s as if the audience is holding its breath, relieved by the occasional burst of laughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10830525\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/nowfornow3801.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10830525\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/nowfornow3801.jpg\" alt=\"Mark Jackson and Megan Trout in their multimedia physical theater piece Now for Now at Z Below. (Photo: Tracy Martin)\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/nowfornow3801.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/nowfornow3801-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Jackson and Megan Trout in their multimedia physical theater piece \u003ci>Now for Now\u003c/i> at Z Below. (Photo: Tracy Martin)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The show includes frequent reminders that this is a carefully scripted performance rather than a confessional. There’s a tight, ritualistic structure to the back-and-forth narration, broken up by some beautifully melancholy and often funny dance sequences: an intense tango involving rock-paper-scissors and hand-slap games, a tender slow dance circling around and atop a stool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the story is fictional, Trout and Jackson blur the lines by including a few autobiographical details of past pursuits and travels. They begin the performance frantically setting up their MacBooks and projection equipment while the seemingly “real” Megan and Mark give amusingly contradictory accounts of what we’re about to see. Meanwhile, the emotional baggage of the actors’ fictional selves starts to emerge. Each version of the narrative involves the actors recalling events that happened when their characters were considerably older than the performers are now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One characteristic of all the stories is that the two characters are apart more than they’re together over the years. He’s always traveling abroad. She struggles with addiction. This drifting apart and together again seems like a terrible thing when they’re a family. But when the characters are in a romance, it’s the most natural thing. Interestingly, their relationship seems most emotionally raw in the teacher-student version, in which the ties between Trout and Jackson’s characters are loosest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The characters stay in touch largely through Skype. Although we don’t see those interactions, the performers make skillful use of iPhone and MacBook cameras to project the faces of one listening to the other’s story. The technology is most effectively employed when cameras project the actors in the process of writing emails or text messages. These moments are more interesting for what is typed and deleted than what is actually sent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately \u003cem>Now for Now \u003c/em>is largely about missed opportunities and regret. One advantage to seeing so many variations upon this theme from so many angles is that one version or another is likely to strike a chord and make viewers reflect on something in a relationship of any kind that they wish they’d done differently. One often repeated phrase that trails off without elaboration in the show –“I should have…” –is one of the saddest things in the world to have to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Now for Now\u003c/em> runs through July 26, 2015 at Z Below in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://nowfornowsf.org\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit nowfornowsf.org.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Supreme Court Justice Tells All in Thurgood Marshall Solo Show",
"headTitle": "Supreme Court Justice Tells All in Thurgood Marshall Solo Show | KQED",
"content": "\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/thurgood/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘Thurgood’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Lorraine Hansberry Theatre presents a solo show about Thurgood Marshall.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Through July 25\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">Lorraine Hansberry Theatre\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/thurgood/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Everybody’s been talking about the Supreme Court in the last couple of weeks as the nation responds to the historic June 26 \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201506260900\">marriage equality ruling\u003c/a> confirming same-sex couples’ right to tie the knot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As such, the timing couldn’t be more prescient for the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre’s production of \u003cem>Thurgood — \u003c/em>a solo show about Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court. Before that, Marshall was a great civil rights lawyer who represented the the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in \u003cem>Brown vs. Board of Education\u003c/em>, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that unanimously declared racially segregated public schools unconstitutional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long San Francisco’s most prominent African-American theater company, the Lorraine Hansberry has kept a relatively low profile since it vacated its last home at the Post Street Theatre three years ago. The currently-nomadic organization is offering its subscribers “passport seasons” of plays produced by other theaters, such as Marin Theatre Company and American Conservatory Theater (ACT). It also produces occasional homegrown fare including staged readings, holiday shows or one-off events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the company returns with a full three-week run of \u003cem>Thurgood\u003c/em> starring its artistic director, veteran ACT actor Steven Anthony Jones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this biographical monologue by George Stevens Jr., Marshall visits his alma mater, Howard University, for a lecture in which he reviews his life and career from the streets of Baltimore to the highest court in the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones took some time out from rehearsals to talk about the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10826454\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 542px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/ThurgoodB.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10826454\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/ThurgoodB.jpg\" alt=\"Steven Anthony Jones as Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in George Stevens Jr.'s biographical monologue Thurgood. (Photo: Gina Snow)\" width=\"542\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/ThurgoodB.jpg 542w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/ThurgoodB-400x590.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/ThurgoodB-407x600.jpg 407w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 542px) 100vw, 542px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steven Anthony Jones as Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in George Stevens Jr.’s biographical monologue \u003ci>Thurgood\u003c/i>. (Photo: Gina Snow/Lorraine Hansberry Theatre)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How would you describe \u003cem>Thurgood\u003c/em>?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If we’re going to talk in general terms, it is another of those one-man shows in which historical characters talk about their lives. The only reason that’s interesting is because that historical character was so important. I think we have forgotten what a major figure Thurgood Marshall was in the 20th century, in the civil rights movement particularly. The playwright couldn’t have known the storm of events—the emergence of “Black Lives Matter,” the examination of how the police conduct themselves, the fact that we have a black president, the controversy over the death penalty, the taking down of the Confederate flag. All of these things have come together in the news and in American society. And this play, in Thurgood Marshall’s voice, speaks out about all of that stuff. I mean, it’s as though the play were written six months ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>This production turned out to be pretty timely, with so much excitement around the Supreme Court right now. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can’t give myself credit for that. I would be lying if I said that I’d anticipated any of it. My initial thought was that this is a really important person historically and it harkens back to his being a leader in the civil rights movement. Race is always a topic. But Marshall and the people who worked with him risked their lives. Some people \u003cem>lost\u003c/em> their lives so that we today could live the way that we live. The Supreme Court, \u003cem>Brown v. Board of Education\u003c/em>, the \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Loving\u003c/em> case\u003c/a> and the marriage equality movement are all game changers. The basis of Marshall’s strategy was the 14th Amendment. The judgment that the Supreme Court handed down on marriage equality was based on the 14th Amendment. I absolutely could never have foreseen that. I didn’t think I’d live to see a black president. For a lot of reasons, I feel like this is an amazing time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What does this play have to say to the present moment? What could we stand to learn from Marshall’s story?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marshall went to school with Langston Hughes and he credits Hughes with getting him to give up the party life when they were in college. So he finishes the play with a quote from a \u003ca href=\"http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/let-america-be-america-again\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hughes poem\u003c/a>: “America never was America to me, and yet I swear this oath–America will be!” I really think that sums it up. Many people will freely admit, in terms of race, income equality and other issues that are important and that are recognized by a broad spectrum of people, there’s a whole lot left to do. For a lot of people, including LGBT and the poor, “America never was America, but America \u003cem>will be,”\u003c/em> because there are good people with their shoulders to the wheel that are continuing the work that Thurgood Marshall began.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Thurgood\u003c/em> runs through July 25, 2015 at the Creativity Theater in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://LHTSF.org\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit LHTSF.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Steven Anthony Jones plays civil rights icon and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in 'Thurgood.'",
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"title": "Supreme Court Justice Tells All in Thurgood Marshall Solo Show | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"event-info alignright\">\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/the-do-list/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/thedolist_icon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/thurgood/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Event Information\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch2>‘Thurgood’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-desc\">Lorraine Hansberry Theatre presents a solo show about Thurgood Marshall.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-dates\">\n\u003ch4>Through July 25\u003c/h4>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"event-venue\">Lorraine Hansberry Theatre\u003c/div>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/the-do-list/thurgood/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details and tickets\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Everybody’s been talking about the Supreme Court in the last couple of weeks as the nation responds to the historic June 26 \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201506260900\">marriage equality ruling\u003c/a> confirming same-sex couples’ right to tie the knot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As such, the timing couldn’t be more prescient for the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre’s production of \u003cem>Thurgood — \u003c/em>a solo show about Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court. Before that, Marshall was a great civil rights lawyer who represented the the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in \u003cem>Brown vs. Board of Education\u003c/em>, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that unanimously declared racially segregated public schools unconstitutional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long San Francisco’s most prominent African-American theater company, the Lorraine Hansberry has kept a relatively low profile since it vacated its last home at the Post Street Theatre three years ago. The currently-nomadic organization is offering its subscribers “passport seasons” of plays produced by other theaters, such as Marin Theatre Company and American Conservatory Theater (ACT). It also produces occasional homegrown fare including staged readings, holiday shows or one-off events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the company returns with a full three-week run of \u003cem>Thurgood\u003c/em> starring its artistic director, veteran ACT actor Steven Anthony Jones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this biographical monologue by George Stevens Jr., Marshall visits his alma mater, Howard University, for a lecture in which he reviews his life and career from the streets of Baltimore to the highest court in the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones took some time out from rehearsals to talk about the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10826454\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 542px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/ThurgoodB.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10826454\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/ThurgoodB.jpg\" alt=\"Steven Anthony Jones as Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in George Stevens Jr.'s biographical monologue Thurgood. (Photo: Gina Snow)\" width=\"542\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/ThurgoodB.jpg 542w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/ThurgoodB-400x590.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/07/ThurgoodB-407x600.jpg 407w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 542px) 100vw, 542px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steven Anthony Jones as Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in George Stevens Jr.’s biographical monologue \u003ci>Thurgood\u003c/i>. (Photo: Gina Snow/Lorraine Hansberry Theatre)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How would you describe \u003cem>Thurgood\u003c/em>?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If we’re going to talk in general terms, it is another of those one-man shows in which historical characters talk about their lives. The only reason that’s interesting is because that historical character was so important. I think we have forgotten what a major figure Thurgood Marshall was in the 20th century, in the civil rights movement particularly. The playwright couldn’t have known the storm of events—the emergence of “Black Lives Matter,” the examination of how the police conduct themselves, the fact that we have a black president, the controversy over the death penalty, the taking down of the Confederate flag. All of these things have come together in the news and in American society. And this play, in Thurgood Marshall’s voice, speaks out about all of that stuff. I mean, it’s as though the play were written six months ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>This production turned out to be pretty timely, with so much excitement around the Supreme Court right now. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can’t give myself credit for that. I would be lying if I said that I’d anticipated any of it. My initial thought was that this is a really important person historically and it harkens back to his being a leader in the civil rights movement. Race is always a topic. But Marshall and the people who worked with him risked their lives. Some people \u003cem>lost\u003c/em> their lives so that we today could live the way that we live. The Supreme Court, \u003cem>Brown v. Board of Education\u003c/em>, the \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Loving\u003c/em> case\u003c/a> and the marriage equality movement are all game changers. The basis of Marshall’s strategy was the 14th Amendment. The judgment that the Supreme Court handed down on marriage equality was based on the 14th Amendment. I absolutely could never have foreseen that. I didn’t think I’d live to see a black president. For a lot of reasons, I feel like this is an amazing time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What does this play have to say to the present moment? What could we stand to learn from Marshall’s story?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marshall went to school with Langston Hughes and he credits Hughes with getting him to give up the party life when they were in college. So he finishes the play with a quote from a \u003ca href=\"http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/let-america-be-america-again\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hughes poem\u003c/a>: “America never was America to me, and yet I swear this oath–America will be!” I really think that sums it up. Many people will freely admit, in terms of race, income equality and other issues that are important and that are recognized by a broad spectrum of people, there’s a whole lot left to do. For a lot of people, including LGBT and the poor, “America never was America, but America \u003cem>will be,”\u003c/em> because there are good people with their shoulders to the wheel that are continuing the work that Thurgood Marshall began.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Thurgood\u003c/em> runs through July 25, 2015 at the Creativity Theater in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://LHTSF.org\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit LHTSF.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "'Detroit' is a State of Mind in Aurora Theatre's Disturbing Suburban Play",
"headTitle": "‘Detroit’ is a State of Mind in Aurora Theatre’s Disturbing Suburban Play | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>People are always complaining that the world’s not what it used to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents can’t let kids wander around their neighborhoods unsupervised the way they could in generations past. Neighbors don’t know each other anymore and go out of their way to avoid contact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This sense of anxious disconnection lies at the heart of Lisa D’Amour’s 2010 comedy \u003cem>Detroit, \u003c/em>a play in which two couples who live in adjacent houses awkwardly try to get to know each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Detroit\u003c/em> isn’t necessarily set in Detroit. It takes place in a suburb right outside a midsize American city–\u003cem>any\u003c/em> midsize American city–that’s seen better days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But America’s “Motor City” evokes the specter of economic collapse, and a nagging sense of how easy it would be to lose everything permeates the drama .\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, Detroit is a state of mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10808942\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit13.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10808942\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit13.jpg\" alt=\"Suburbanites Mary (Amy Resnick) and Ben (Jeff Garrett) host a lawn party for new neighbors Kenny (Patrick Kelly Jones) and Sharon (Luisa Frasconi) in Aurora’s Bay Area premiere of Detroit. (Photo: David Allen)\" width=\"800\" height=\"591\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit13.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit13-400x296.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Suburbanites Mary (Amy Resnick) and Ben (Jeff Garrett) host a lawn party for new neighbors Kenny (Patrick Kelly Jones) and Sharon (Luisa Frasconi) in Aurora Theatre Company’s Bay Area premiere of ‘\u003ci>Detroit\u003c/i>.’ (Photo: David Allen)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The financial angst is palpable from the first moments of Josh Costello’s staging at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middle aged and middle class Mary and Ben, who’ve been living in the neighborhood for years, invite the young couple next door over for a backyard cookout to try to get to know them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharon and Kenny have just moved in. They have no furniture and there’s something faintly disturbing about them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharon (Luisa Frasconi, bubbly and flirtatious) cheerfully blurts out inappropriate or bizarre things, such as her insistence that Ben must be secretly British when he’s clearly as American as Homer Simpson. Kenny (a laconic Patrick Kelly Jones) is more cagey and given to spells of manic twitchiness. They talk blithely about how they met in rehab and a little too fondly about past drug-fueled revels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amy Resnick simmers with anxiety as Mary, who’s both suspicious of the new neighbors and desperate to befriend them. She’s the only one of foursome with a real job. She drinks too much and she’s supportive but concerned about her husband’s new business plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ben was laid off as a loan officer at a bank and now he’s endlessly working on a website for his own business as a financial consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeff Garrett’s portrayal of the buffoonish Ben is more broadly goofy than the other performances. With his gaping smile and rubbery gait, he looks like he’s appearing in a different play from his fellow cast members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10808940\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10808940\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit1.jpg\" alt=\"Kenny, Mary, Sharon and Ben (l-r, Patrick Kelly Jones, Amy Resnick, Luisa Frasconi, Jeff Garrett) have a wild backyard barbecue in Aurora’s Bay Area premiere of Detroit. (Photo: David Allen)\" width=\"800\" height=\"563\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit1.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit1-400x282.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kenny, Mary, Sharon and Ben (l-r, Patrick Kelly Jones, Amy Resnick, Luisa Frasconi, Jeff Garrett) have a wild backyard barbecue in Aurora’s Bay Area premiere of \u003ci>Detroit\u003c/i>. (Photo: David Allen)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Still, it doesn’t take long for the rest of the characters to catch up on the weirdness front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All four suburbanites are on the verge of some kind of breakdown, and the freakouts quickly start flying in all directions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The director and his cast deftly build the mounting agitation until it reaches a level of wild frenzy. Inanimate objects fall apart with alarming frequency, as if to mimic the human meltdowns going on around them: The patio umbrella keeps collapsing, the sliding glass door jams and a half-constructed deck may as well be a bear trap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gnawing at an open wound buried deep in the American psyche, the play is hilarious and unnerving at the same time. Implicit in the dream that anyone can succeed is the message that it’s your fault if you fail, and the line between the two outcomes is perilously thin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Built on a foundation of imaginary money such as credit or the stock market, every house on the street is a house of cards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Detroit \u003c/em>runs through July 19, 2015 at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley. For \u003ca href=\"http://auroratheatre.org\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit auroratheatre.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>People are always complaining that the world’s not what it used to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents can’t let kids wander around their neighborhoods unsupervised the way they could in generations past. Neighbors don’t know each other anymore and go out of their way to avoid contact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This sense of anxious disconnection lies at the heart of Lisa D’Amour’s 2010 comedy \u003cem>Detroit, \u003c/em>a play in which two couples who live in adjacent houses awkwardly try to get to know each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Detroit\u003c/em> isn’t necessarily set in Detroit. It takes place in a suburb right outside a midsize American city–\u003cem>any\u003c/em> midsize American city–that’s seen better days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But America’s “Motor City” evokes the specter of economic collapse, and a nagging sense of how easy it would be to lose everything permeates the drama .\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, Detroit is a state of mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10808942\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit13.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10808942\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit13.jpg\" alt=\"Suburbanites Mary (Amy Resnick) and Ben (Jeff Garrett) host a lawn party for new neighbors Kenny (Patrick Kelly Jones) and Sharon (Luisa Frasconi) in Aurora’s Bay Area premiere of Detroit. (Photo: David Allen)\" width=\"800\" height=\"591\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit13.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit13-400x296.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Suburbanites Mary (Amy Resnick) and Ben (Jeff Garrett) host a lawn party for new neighbors Kenny (Patrick Kelly Jones) and Sharon (Luisa Frasconi) in Aurora Theatre Company’s Bay Area premiere of ‘\u003ci>Detroit\u003c/i>.’ (Photo: David Allen)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The financial angst is palpable from the first moments of Josh Costello’s staging at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middle aged and middle class Mary and Ben, who’ve been living in the neighborhood for years, invite the young couple next door over for a backyard cookout to try to get to know them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharon and Kenny have just moved in. They have no furniture and there’s something faintly disturbing about them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharon (Luisa Frasconi, bubbly and flirtatious) cheerfully blurts out inappropriate or bizarre things, such as her insistence that Ben must be secretly British when he’s clearly as American as Homer Simpson. Kenny (a laconic Patrick Kelly Jones) is more cagey and given to spells of manic twitchiness. They talk blithely about how they met in rehab and a little too fondly about past drug-fueled revels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amy Resnick simmers with anxiety as Mary, who’s both suspicious of the new neighbors and desperate to befriend them. She’s the only one of foursome with a real job. She drinks too much and she’s supportive but concerned about her husband’s new business plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ben was laid off as a loan officer at a bank and now he’s endlessly working on a website for his own business as a financial consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeff Garrett’s portrayal of the buffoonish Ben is more broadly goofy than the other performances. With his gaping smile and rubbery gait, he looks like he’s appearing in a different play from his fellow cast members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10808940\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10808940\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit1.jpg\" alt=\"Kenny, Mary, Sharon and Ben (l-r, Patrick Kelly Jones, Amy Resnick, Luisa Frasconi, Jeff Garrett) have a wild backyard barbecue in Aurora’s Bay Area premiere of Detroit. (Photo: David Allen)\" width=\"800\" height=\"563\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit1.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/detroit1-400x282.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kenny, Mary, Sharon and Ben (l-r, Patrick Kelly Jones, Amy Resnick, Luisa Frasconi, Jeff Garrett) have a wild backyard barbecue in Aurora’s Bay Area premiere of \u003ci>Detroit\u003c/i>. (Photo: David Allen)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Still, it doesn’t take long for the rest of the characters to catch up on the weirdness front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All four suburbanites are on the verge of some kind of breakdown, and the freakouts quickly start flying in all directions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The director and his cast deftly build the mounting agitation until it reaches a level of wild frenzy. Inanimate objects fall apart with alarming frequency, as if to mimic the human meltdowns going on around them: The patio umbrella keeps collapsing, the sliding glass door jams and a half-constructed deck may as well be a bear trap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gnawing at an open wound buried deep in the American psyche, the play is hilarious and unnerving at the same time. Implicit in the dream that anyone can succeed is the message that it’s your fault if you fail, and the line between the two outcomes is perilously thin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Built on a foundation of imaginary money such as credit or the stock market, every house on the street is a house of cards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Detroit \u003c/em>runs through July 19, 2015 at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley. For \u003ca href=\"http://auroratheatre.org\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit auroratheatre.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "combating-depression-with-a-year-of-free-theater",
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"content": "\u003cp>Theater artist Brian Copeland’s one-man show \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/worth-the-wait/\">The Waiting Period,\u003c/a>\u003c/em> which premiered at the Marsh San Francisco in 2012, is all about grappling with suicidal depression and what to do when you feel like nothing can be done. Despite the bleak subject matter, it’s a wonderfully funny show that explores some of the darkest depths of the human psyche.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now the Marsh wants to present \u003cem>The Waiting Period\u003c/em> for free so that as many people as possible who might be struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts can see the show. The longtime hub for solo performance has started a \u003ca href=\"http://www.gofundme.com/xknytk\">GoFundMe campaign\u003c/a> to raise $150,000 to show \u003cem>The Waiting Period\u003c/em> free to the public every Sunday night in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Suicide among high school kids and college kids is through the roof,” Copeland says. “And a $30 to $100 ticket is not something that’s affordable to everyone and certainly is not something that’s affordable to a student. So that’s where the idea came from that I should just give this show away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A local comedian and talk show host, Copeland set the record for longest-running solo show in San Francisco history with 2004’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/TV-sniffing-around-solo-show-that-just-won-t-quit-2672001.php\">Not a Genuine Black Man\u003c/a>\u003c/em> at the Marsh, about growing up in one of the first African American families in San Leandro when it was still known as one of America’s most racist suburbs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10797893\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10797893\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1.jpg\" alt=\"Brian Copeland details his own struggles with depression and suicidal thought in the solo show The Waiting Period. (Photo: Carla Befera)\" width=\"800\" height=\"1192\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1-400x596.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1-403x600.jpg 403w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1-792x1180.jpg 792w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brian Copeland details his own struggles with depression and suicidal thought in the solo show \u003ci>The Waiting Period\u003c/i>. (Photo: Carla Befera)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Copeland was having a particularly hard year in 2008. His grandmother died, his marriage fell apart, and he was badly injured in a car accident. Things got so bad that he bought a handgun with the intention of committing suicide. But in California, there’s a 10-day waiting period before you can actually take a firearm home, and during those 10 days Copeland got through the worst of his depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003cem>The Waiting Period\u003c/em>, he tells the audience all about what he went through during that time-span — and, most importantly, how he came out of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His message, he says, is, “Tell somebody.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I can stand up here for 75 minutes and spill my guts to strangers, you can certainly tell your husband that this is what you’re thinking about while he’s at work,” Copeland says. “You can certainly tell your parents that this is what you’re thinking about when you’re sitting in your room with the door closed and they think you’re studying.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To get the show out to people who might need to see it most, Copeland plans to do a lot of outreach with the counseling departments at local schools to get their students to come see the show, as well as getting the word out through organizations such as \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfsuicide.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Francisco Suicide Prevention\u003c/a>. Copeland also plans to continue taking the show to some junior colleges and other schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really struggled with bringing it to the campus because it really is very much an emotional performance,” says Lavinia Zanassi, a career counselor at Skyline College in San Bruno, who had to have a lot of conversations with her colleagues about whether tackling this subject might be too difficult for some students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The impact it had on the students, although it may have been painful for some of them, it was in a positive way,” Zanassi says. “I have had a good 10 students to date coming to me and saying, ‘Thank you so much for doing this. It was a conversation I needed to hear. Something about this presentation touched me.’ It’s been with students that have been depressed themselves, and also with students who have had suicide in their families. If I’m asked was it worth it, I’d have to say absolutely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Theater artist Brian Copeland’s one-man show \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://theidiolect.com/theater/worth-the-wait/\">The Waiting Period,\u003c/a>\u003c/em> which premiered at the Marsh San Francisco in 2012, is all about grappling with suicidal depression and what to do when you feel like nothing can be done. Despite the bleak subject matter, it’s a wonderfully funny show that explores some of the darkest depths of the human psyche.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now the Marsh wants to present \u003cem>The Waiting Period\u003c/em> for free so that as many people as possible who might be struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts can see the show. The longtime hub for solo performance has started a \u003ca href=\"http://www.gofundme.com/xknytk\">GoFundMe campaign\u003c/a> to raise $150,000 to show \u003cem>The Waiting Period\u003c/em> free to the public every Sunday night in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Suicide among high school kids and college kids is through the roof,” Copeland says. “And a $30 to $100 ticket is not something that’s affordable to everyone and certainly is not something that’s affordable to a student. So that’s where the idea came from that I should just give this show away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A local comedian and talk show host, Copeland set the record for longest-running solo show in San Francisco history with 2004’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/TV-sniffing-around-solo-show-that-just-won-t-quit-2672001.php\">Not a Genuine Black Man\u003c/a>\u003c/em> at the Marsh, about growing up in one of the first African American families in San Leandro when it was still known as one of America’s most racist suburbs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10797893\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10797893\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1.jpg\" alt=\"Brian Copeland details his own struggles with depression and suicidal thought in the solo show The Waiting Period. (Photo: Carla Befera)\" width=\"800\" height=\"1192\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1-400x596.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1-403x600.jpg 403w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/waitingperiod1-792x1180.jpg 792w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brian Copeland details his own struggles with depression and suicidal thought in the solo show \u003ci>The Waiting Period\u003c/i>. (Photo: Carla Befera)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Copeland was having a particularly hard year in 2008. His grandmother died, his marriage fell apart, and he was badly injured in a car accident. Things got so bad that he bought a handgun with the intention of committing suicide. But in California, there’s a 10-day waiting period before you can actually take a firearm home, and during those 10 days Copeland got through the worst of his depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003cem>The Waiting Period\u003c/em>, he tells the audience all about what he went through during that time-span — and, most importantly, how he came out of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His message, he says, is, “Tell somebody.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I can stand up here for 75 minutes and spill my guts to strangers, you can certainly tell your husband that this is what you’re thinking about while he’s at work,” Copeland says. “You can certainly tell your parents that this is what you’re thinking about when you’re sitting in your room with the door closed and they think you’re studying.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To get the show out to people who might need to see it most, Copeland plans to do a lot of outreach with the counseling departments at local schools to get their students to come see the show, as well as getting the word out through organizations such as \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfsuicide.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Francisco Suicide Prevention\u003c/a>. Copeland also plans to continue taking the show to some junior colleges and other schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really struggled with bringing it to the campus because it really is very much an emotional performance,” says Lavinia Zanassi, a career counselor at Skyline College in San Bruno, who had to have a lot of conversations with her colleagues about whether tackling this subject might be too difficult for some students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The impact it had on the students, although it may have been painful for some of them, it was in a positive way,” Zanassi says. “I have had a good 10 students to date coming to me and saying, ‘Thank you so much for doing this. It was a conversation I needed to hear. Something about this presentation touched me.’ It’s been with students that have been depressed themselves, and also with students who have had suicide in their families. If I’m asked was it worth it, I’d have to say absolutely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
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"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
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"meta": {
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"source": "WNYC"
},
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
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"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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